This invention relates to a portable satellite communication equipment.
In the last few years, a portable satellite communication equipment, which has a parabolic or a flat antenna, has been introduced to the market.
It is required that such a portable satellite communication equipment is small in size and light in weight. In this connection, the portable satellite communication equipment having the flat antenna was easier to transport and beneficial to users.
To increase the portability of such equipment, a portable satellite communication equipment using several flat antennae that could be folded up for transportation had been proposed. An example of such a conventional portable satellite communication equipment is disclosed in Unexamined Japanese Patent Application No. Sho 63-174431, namely, 174431/1988.
This portable satellite communication equipment comprises a flat reception antenna and a flat transmission antenna which are foldably coupled to each other. As a result, the portable satellite communication equipment disclosed in the above-referenced application was smaller in size than that having a parabolic antenna.
However, no consideration was made about the possibility that the portable satellite communication equipment could have a plurality of flat antennae each having both transmission and reception functions.
In the portable satellite communication equipment disclosed in the above-referenced application, one antenna was for transmission and the other for reception, and despite having two antennae, only one could be used at a time. This was the limit for the conventional portable satellite communication equipment in terms of small size and light weight.